


Notes on Causality

by thesnadger



Series: Something's Different About You Lately [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Time Travel Fix-It, references to police brutality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28795731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesnadger/pseuds/thesnadger
Summary: An Addendum to Something's Different About You Lately. Small scenes of Jon attempting to change the future.
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Series: Something's Different About You Lately [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111217
Comments: 11
Kudos: 169





	Notes on Causality

**Author's Note:**

> There are some things that people have asked about (what about Daisy and Basira, how is Elias reacting to certain things, etc) that I know the answer to but don't plan to put in the main story (mostly because I think they'd break the momentum I'm hoping for.) So I'm making this place to put a few small scenes.
> 
> Timeline is a little vague here, but events of this first chapter happen in the same general time period as Chapter 5 - Gentle, Cheerful Lies.

It had taken some time, but Jon had managed to find a coin-operated phone booth well outside central London, on a side street without any foot traffic. Even then he hesitated, hanging back until several minutes had passed without anybody walking by. The notebook he'd filled with scribbled-out eyes was still tucked in his pocket, though he didn't really know if it was enough to keep Elias from seeing this. He wasn't sure if it even mattered – for once Elias's attention wasn't what concerned him - but he felt better using every resource at his disposal.

He wrapped a thin scarf around the receiver to disguise his voice, and dialed the number from memory.

"Hello?" A familiar voice answered.

"Officer Hussain?"

"What?"

"I need to speak to you about–"

"Can't understand you," she cut him off. "You sound really muffled, can't make out what you're saying."

Jon sighed and took the scarf away. "Better?"

"Oh, yeah. Much better."

"Wonderful," Jon said archly. "Listen, this is probably going to be a very strange call. But given that you're Section 31, I suspect you're not inclined to dismiss something just because it's strange."

There was a brief pause, the silence of a perspective shifting.

". . . All right," Basira said.

"Sometime in the future, you may be called on to carry out a raid involving the People's Church of the Divine Host, likely in connection with a kidnapping case. If that happens, you'll need as many light sources with you as possible. High-powered torches, flares, the more the better."

"Why?"

"Because the thing that will be waiting for you in there does not like the light."

There was another, longer pause.

"Guess you did say it would be a strange call," Basira said. Jon found it painfully easy to imagine the look on her face, eyebrows raised, balanced somewhere between amused and wary.

"If it's any consolation, this is pretty strange for me as well."

"Hmm," he thought he heard the sound of writing, but it may have been his imagination."Who are you, anyway? Are you with the People's Church?"

"I can't explain that. Just think of this as an anonymous tip."

"Fair enough."

"And there's something else you should know. The kidnapping victim, he should be about twelve . . . if you get him out. . . ." Jon hesitated, then continued. "Try to see that he gets help."

"Not sure what you mean. Like, counseling or something?"

"I – yes maybe? _Good_ counseling, though. But just a helpful, sympathetic adult might make a difference."

"You know I'm not –"

"I know," he couldn't keep himself from interrupting, already guessing her response. "You're the police and not a babysitting service, I get it. It's just . . . he's going to be changed by his experiences. And there aren't many people out there who have the kind of experience with the supernatural that you do – who'd even believe what he'd been through, let alone understand the weight of it."

He knew even as he spoke that he was probably getting Callum killed. No matter how he framed it, directing Basira's attention towards him would put him in Daisy's sights as well. And if she saw him as a monster, his age would be no protection. The thought did not sit comfortably at all.

"He's had some behavioral issues already – fighting in school, bullying younger children. I'm sure you've encountered worse from troubled youths."

A soft snort of a laugh. "Sure."

"But he can be better than that. And . . ." he struggled to find the right words. "I think if someone doesn't intervene, he won't have the _chance_ to be."

He didn't know where the desperate note in his voice had come from. Was he pleading with Basira, to reach out to Callum in earnest and not write him off? He wasn't even certain she _could_ pull him away from the path of the Dark, if it was possible at all.

It wasn't just the fate of one child in question. There were the ones who would be Callum's victims. Knowing what he knew, did have a responsibility to them? To keep Callum from becoming something that would feed other children to the Dark, even if the most likely outcome was him dying in pain and fear? Wasn't it unfair to put him in this position – not even because of anything he'd done, but because of what he _might_ do?

And if he had a duty to Callum's victims, what duty did he have to Daisy's?

"Okay. Suppose I'll try talking to him." Basira's voice. "Anything else, mystery man?"

There was nothing he could do about Daisy. He'd thought about it ever since he came back, approached it from a thousand different angles and in the end came up empty. He couldn't make her _want_ to change. Confronting her with her actions now would end with him in an unmarked grave, killed to keep her secrets and feed her god. Trying to stop her by force – or somehow kill her – would end the same way. And he could hardly trap her in the Buried, let alone dive in and pull her out again.

Even if he could, he'd only be killing her indirectly.

Whose sake did he even want to stop her for? Some lost, alternate version of herself? For her victims, perhaps. But there were other avatars out there, including others on the police force. It wasn't as if he was planning to go after them all, play the Hunter himself. This world was full of darkness and pain, and Daisy and Callum were just two terrible pieces of it.

Maybe he wanted to help them for his own sake. Maybe it was just for his own reassurance that he wanted them to be better than their worst selves. Or maybe it wasn't any one reason – these motivations weren't incompatible.

It was academic, he had no way to save or to stop her. Daisy would keep killing, and one day Basira would either join her as a Hunter or die by her hands. And nothing he could do would change any of that.

"You still there?"

A voice came in his ear, snapping him out of his thoughts. Without thinking, he opened his mouth.

"Do you like what your partner is doing?"

The words came without his consent – from brain to voice without pause or filter, and then they couldn't be taken back. Basira's voice remained steady, but he knew her well enough to feel how high her guard had just gone up.

"What do you mean?"

"What she did to Aaron Singh, Noah Thomson, Cloé Espinosa? Do you approve of it, or think it's righteous? Do you think that you're becoming something good?"

". . . Who are you?"

Jon hung the phone up before he could say more, then stood leaning against the side of the phone booth, heart racing. He waited until his breathing returned to normal, and until the phantom ache across his throat began to fade. Had he changed anything? If so, was the change for better or for worse? If he was lucky, he would never know.

He turned and walked back to the train station.


End file.
